My Way News - Tighter oversight on border laptop searches
My Way News reports: "Given all the personal details that people store on digital devices, border searches of laptops and other gadgets can give law enforcement officials far more revealing pictures of travelers than suitcase inspections might yield. That has set off alarms among civil liberties groups and travelers' advocates who say the government has crossed a line by examining electronic contact lists and confidential e-mail messages, trade secrets and proprietary business files, financial and medical records and other deeply private information."

Comment: The first time the practice of searching laptops, cell phones and PDAs was revealed in the press I thought for sure the practice would be discontinued. After all, we can easily understand the need for border searches for drugs and other prohibited items, but a digital search is a search for information, it's a fishing expedition without a warrant, how can it possibly be permissible? And yet it is. You would think that fighting the war on drugs would be enough for them.